Another frequent question that comes up with regard to Shakespeare concerns whether he was a dramatist who wrote in verse, or a poet who wrote plays. Northrop Frye argued for the former (in Northrop Frye on Shakespeare) and although I seldom disagree with the great man, I do here. To me, the clearest way to see the plays for what they really are is to accept them as large-scale poems that treat several related themes in various but ultimately connected ways. They are like literary symphonies. This is not to say that Shakespeare was not a masterful playwright in the strictest story-telling sense - he was. But at no point in any of the plays is language and poetry ever disregarded or treated as secondary. The most comprehensive handbook that I've come across in terms of explaining the various and subtle aspects of poetry is John Ciardi and Miller Williams' How Does a Poem Mean?(1959). It does a splendid job of discussing meter, rhyme, figurative language, diction, tone, imagery - and there is not one section of the book, one concept or poetic technique that could not be illustrated by an example from Shakespeare. This could not be said about any other dramatist that used verse. Consider this also: Hamlet, the work of literature that explores the human condition more deeply than any before and perhaps since, states its thematic concern with this concise and powerful opening: "Who's there?" Only a poet of the highest order would (or could) have done so.